New ways to view or e-mail your photos

Q: Is there a program for organizing pictures that’s similar to what iTunes does with music?

I’m looking for a way to scan photos once and organize them into “playlists.” I’d like for a single digital copy of a photo to be able to appear in multiple playlists, and to be able to add a photo to each playlist using drag and drop. And I’d like to be able to burn a playlist to a disk.

Ed Broders, Baton Rouge, La.

A: Most of what you would like is available. Photo organizing software will allow you to create something resembling playlists.

Good photo organizing programs allow you to tag photos with characteristics that make them searchable within the photo program. Typical tags let you identify a photo by a key word, the location or date it was taken, a person in the picture or a subjective “rating” the photo is given.

The photo program then allows you to create “search filters” that automatically retrieve some pictures and not others — for example, all photos of a particular person in San Francisco, or all of your favorite skiing photos from last year. These filtered searches are the rough equivalent of a playlist. And, yes, the same single digital copy of a photo could appear in more than one playlist, depending on how it was tagged.

But photo programs may not allow these picture “playlists” to be burned to a disk the way iTunes burns a songs playlist. And you would have to add a photo to a playlist by giving it another tag, not by drag and drop.

For a list of photo organizing programs that you can buy, see tinyurl.com/jmvssxr. The programs are rated on their ability to categorize, edit and manage pictures, and the ease with which they can post directly to social media websites.

Q: I use PenTeleData’s e-mail service on my Windows 10 PC, but I can’t seem to send pictures in the body of an e-mail. Neither PenTeleData nor Microsoft can help me. What is wrong?

David Lessig, Reading, Pa.

A: What you are describing is called “embedding” a photo in an e-mail, which many people prefer to attaching a photo. While you can embed photos in most PenTeleData e-mails, you will need to use an “insert” command instead of the older methods of copying-and-pasting or dragging-and-dropping photos into the body of the text.

If you are using PenTeleData’s webmail service (read through a Web browser), the program limits you to sending photos only as attachments.

But if you are using the firm’s PC-based e-mail programs, Microsoft Outlook 2007 or the Windows 10 Mail App, you can use an insert command.

In the Windows 10 Mail App, click on where you want the picture to appear in the e-mail, click “insert” at the top of the e-mail and click “pictures” from the menu below it. You can then double-click any photo stored on your PC and it will be copied to the body of the e-mail.

In Outlook 2007, click the spot in the e-mail where you want to insert the photo, then click on the “Insert” tab. In the “Illustrations” menu, click “Picture.” Then double-click any photo stored on your PC and it will show up in the e-mail.

E-mail tech questions to steve.j.alexander@gmail.com. Include name, city and telephone number.

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